Executions During The Irish Civil War - The First Executions and Reprisals

The First Executions and Reprisals

The first four executions occurred shortly after the Republicans rejected the amnesty in mid-October 1922. On 17 November, five Anti-Treaty IRA fighters were captured in county Wicklow, on 19 November, three more armed men were detained. On 23 November eight IRA men appealed for their lives to the civilian judiciary, Erskine Childers, secretary to the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations, made nine. Childers had been captured on 10 November in possession of a pistol which had been given to him by Collins before the split. The "Master of the Rolls" considered whether a state of war existed: sitting as he was in Green Street Courthouse away from the destroyed Four Courts, he listed railways torn up and stations destroyed, bridges wrecked and the "noblest mansions in the country" burnt to the ground, he concluded there was a state of war. He considered the existence of a Provisional Government in Ireland and its authority to act as proposed and execute the nine.

'The Provisional Government now is, de jure as well as de facto, the ruling authority in Ireland and its duty is to preserve the peace, administer the law, and to repress, by force if necessary, all attempts to overthrow it.'

On 24 November the men were executed by firing squad. Childers was the Republican head of propaganda and it was widely speculated that eight low ranking Republicans were shot before Childers so that it would not look as if he had been singled out for special treatment.

In response to the executions, on 30 November, Liam Lynch, Chief of Staff of the anti-treaty IRA, ordered that any member of Parliament (TD) or senator who had signed or voted for the "murder bill" should be shot on sight. He also ordered the killing of hostile judges and newspaper editors. On the same day, three more Republican prisoners were executed in Dublin.

On 7 December, Anti-Treaty IRA gunmen shot two TDs, Sean Hales and Pádraic Ó Máille, in Dublin as they were on their way to the Dáil. Hales was killed and O'Maille was badly wounded. After an emergency cabinet meeting, the Free State government decided on the retaliatory executions of four prominent Republicans (one from each province). Accordingly, on 8 December 1922, the day after Hales' killing, four members of the IRA Army Executive, who had been held since the first week of the war - Rory O'Connor, Liam Mellows, Richard Barrett and Joe McKelvey - were executed in revenge. This was arguably an unlawful act, as the four Republicans had been captured before the Dáil passed the legislation authorising executions. Later on the same day the Dáil debated the executions and approved by a vote of 39-14. One of the poignant aspects of the incident was that O'Connor and Kevin O'Higgins were formerly close friends, and O'Connor had been best man at O'Higgins' wedding just a few months previously. Historian Michael Hopkinson reports that Richard Mulcahy had pressed for the executions and that Kevin O'Higgins was the last member of cabinet to give his consent.

Sean Hales was the only TD to be killed in the war. However, Republicans continued to attack elected representatives in reprisal for executions of their men. On 10 December, the house of TD Seán McGarry was burned down, killing his seven year old son. In addition, homes of Senators were among the 192 burned or destroyed by the IRA in the war. In February 1923, Kevin O'Higgins' elderly father was murdered by Republicans at the family home in Stradbally. W.T. Cosgrave's home was also burned and an uncle of his was assassinated.